


Thinking Back

by bagog



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Conversations, Fluff, Light Angst, Love Confessions, M/M, Post-Series, Snow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-06
Updated: 2015-05-06
Packaged: 2018-03-29 05:59:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3885031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bagog/pseuds/bagog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kaidan and Shepard relax in the snow and reflect back on when they first knew they loved each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thinking Back

**Author's Note:**

  * For [potionsmaster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/potionsmaster/gifts).



> Written for [potionsmaster's tumblr prompt!](http://nightmarestudio606.tumblr.com/post/118053313705/otp-prompt-because-im-nosy-and-sappy)
> 
> This is yet another jettisoned vignette from a longer mshenko fic I'm writing, adapted and rewritten for the prompt. It's about m'custom Shep: Ben.

The snow was soft beneath where he lay, and what sounds of the city that weren’t absorbed in snowdrifts couldn’t penetrate the forest of firs all around them. With his eyes closed, all Kaidan could hear was Shepard’s breathing: deep, full breaths. Even and loud. The way his breathing got right before he fell asleep.

A snow-flake landed on his eyelid, and Kaidan scrunched-up his nose, turning his head to look at where Shepard lay in the snow next to him. Except Shepard wasn’t sleeping, his eyes were wide open, smiling up into the slate gray sky. His cheeks were red—looking especially raw around the scars that were still fading—but even though he was shivering his hand was warm through two layers of gloves when Kaidan took it in his.

“Hey, you wanna head back?” the snow crunched under him as he rolled to his side.

“Not just yet,” Shepard shivered, the snowflakes in his hair like stars, “…I shouldn’t have worn jeans.”

“I told you,” Kaidan chuckled, “First time seeing snow and you thought you had to be a hotshot, huh?”

“Not my first time, technically. First time seeing snow outside an enviro-suit though.”

Kaidan leaned up, and Shepard opened his mouth immediately into his kiss. Shepard nuzzled after his face as he pulled away—Kaidan couldn’t help but wonder if it was just because he was cold—but he laughed anyway, kissed the cold skin on Shepard’s neck, fur tickling his nose when Shepard stretched his throat.

It was enough of a distraction for Kaidan to slip off his stocking cap and pull it down onto Shepard’s head.

“There, you need that more than I do,” Kaidan grinned slyly, settling into Shepard’s body while the man fumbled to hold him properly even with the thick jacket impeding his movement.

“What would I do without you?” Shepard breathed, it had become their private joke in the hospital. One of many.

“You’ll never find out.”

“…thank you. For this. Bringing me out here,” Shepard wiped his red nose on the back of his mitten.

“Well if you wore some better pants you could relax a little more.”

“I haven’t relaxed this much in a long time,” Shepard closed his eyes.

“It’s good seeing you this way, Ben,” and Kaidan stroked down his chest, “Love you.”

“…when did that start?” Shepard asked sleepily, then breathing in sharply with a shiver.

“When did… I start loving you?”

“Oh, no. Maybe? But no. That thing: ‘what-would-i-do-without-you-you’ll-never-find-out’?”

“Y’know,” Kaidan rolled his eyes, “I don’t really remember.”

“…so do you remember when you first knew you loved me?” Ben’s voice was small but mischievous, he cracked open one eye.

Kaidan guffawed and scooched tighter into Shepard’s side.

“I’ll _never_ forget the moment I fell in love with you,” he said playfully, “Or the moment I knew it, anyway. But it’s not a very pleasant memory.”

“Oh.” Shepard’s face settled into the awkward screwed-up expression he made when he didn’t have enough data to move forward with a question. Back on the Normandy he probably would have just left the room. And Kaidan would’ve let him, back then.

“Come _on_ Ben! You know you wanna ask!”

“If you don’t want to tell me—“

“Of course I’m going to tell you!” Kaidan laughed.

“I don’t want to bring up painful—“ but Kaidan thumped him in the side.

“It was after your memorial service,” Kaidan said quietly, his hand pulling Shepard’s collar tight, “A lot of people were there, and after all the official stuff with the Council and the Alliance was done… a bunch of us sort of got together. Y’know, everyone who knew you on the ship. All the people… the people who loved you.

“By the end of the night it was just me and Garrus. I think Liara had just left to go back to her hotel, she had been crying since the service and Garrus and I had been working pretty hard to cheer her up. Garrus was three sheets to the wind. I was… well, I metabolize pretty quickly.

“I’d spent so much time trying to cheer Liara up, trying to match drinks with Garrus. The only person who really… asked me how I was doing about your death was Wrex. We’d had kinda a talk about it earlier. But it was just me and Garrus that night, and Garrus goes:”

Kaidan hitched himself up to sitting cross-legged, adopting an inebriated demeanor, affecting an impression of their mutual friend.

“He goes: ‘Y’know, I never thought I’d meet a _human_ more tight-assed than me’”

“There’s no way he said that.”

“I’m telling the story, it was three years ago, I’m paraphrasing,” Kaidan shot back, “so: ‘I thought _I_ was dedicated to my work, but Shepard made my work ethic look like an afternoon…’ I don’t remember what he said, ‘watching a biotiball tournament’ or something—“

“Garrus hates biotiball.”

“Paraphrasing. Anyway, we toasted you, and then he said: ‘I thought all Alliance guys were the same type. But Shepard?’” Kaidan swayed exaggeratedly, “’he was something else. Going on missions with the two of you? Started to think I was all wrong about the Alliance, if they were all like you two. Then I figured out I wasn’t wrong about the Alliance, just you and Shepard. Cut from a different cloth, the two of you.’”

Kaidan chuckled, but his face fell slowly.

“And then he left and I just kind of… sat there for a while, y’know? And it bugged me what he said, and I couldn’t really figure out why. He wasn’t wrong, exactly. I was an Alliance man through and through. A year earlier and a compliment like that would have meant the world to me, but all of a sudden… it didn’t matter at all, because…”

Kaidan rubbed one of his ears, turning pink no doubt since he gave Shepard his hat. It was hard to remember back that far. One of those experiences you don’t really know you had until you had to vocalize it.

“…it didn’t feel like enough, y’know? We weren’t just brothers-in-arms, we weren’t just two great Alliance officers. For the week since you were declared MIA, I had been… more broken up than I’d been in a long time. I thought it was all a case of hero worship—you were this legendary soldier, and then I met you and you were so much more besides—but after Garrus said what he did… I realized… It wasn’t hero worship. It wasn’t that I missed you because you were my friend—not just. I was in love with you. And you were gone.”

Shepard pulled himself to sitting by pulling on Kaidan’s jacket, their knees knocking together when Shepard kissed Kaidan’s forehead, Kaidan tilting his chin up into the kiss. When their knees bumped again, Kaidan scooted forward until Shepard’s legs were wrapped around his waist, pulling him up into his lap, wet jeans against Kaidan’s slick synthetic pants.

When they’d first gotten together, holding Shepard like this would have set Ben ‘umming’ and ‘errring’ and avoiding Kaidan’s gaze. Now, as Shepard stroked a mitten through his hair, he couldn’t take his eyes off Kaidan.

“I’m sorry,” Shepard said softly.

“For what?”

“For leaving you.”

There was a lot in that little phrase. It wasn’t the first time he’d apologized for that. Kaidan was sure it wouldn’t be the last. Same as always, he wrapped his arms around Shepard.

“You came back.”

“I didn’t mean to bring up such painful memories.”

“It’s ancient history,” Kaidan whispered against Shepard’s cheek, kissing one eyelid, then the other.

“I love you,” Shepard had stopped shivering.

“Oh, I’ve known that for a while,” Kaidan chuckled mischievously, “Did you just figure this out?”

Shepard smiled broadly, then laughed, pushed Kaidan back into the snow and curled up beside him. He groaned a little as his wet jeans sank back into the snow.

“I’ve loved you for a long time. But when did I know _for sure_?” he mused, lifting his head to let Kaidan’s puffy sleeve slide between his neck and the snow, “I wanted to be with you for so long on the SR-1, but I made peace with the fact that we would be friends. When we talked at Apollo’s that time, I had buried all those feelings so deep. I wanted to be with you. I wanted you.”

Shepard shifted awkwardly.

“Relationships. I haven’t really… at the Villa it was all about trust, all about physical intensity and…” he paused for a long moment, then shrugged, “I realized it was love—that I was _in love_ with you—after we lost Thessia to the Reapers.”

“…oh yeah?”

“Yeah. We’d just lost the Catalyst, we just watched Thessia fall. I was so angry, and when you came to cool me down… that’s when I knew. The galaxy was falling apart, but you were with me. It gave me the strength to go on. Save the galaxy, save Kaidan. It had to be me that did it, because I love you.”

“…oh,” Kaidan’s eyebrows were furrowed, but Shepard’s expression was clear: an old soldier debriefing the facts of his mission, “…is that all?”

Shepard’s eyes narrowed just a little, and Kaidan snickered.

“Is that enough?” Shepard asked, catching on.

“It’s enough.”

**Author's Note:**

> Short and fluffy, I hope? Thank you for reading. I swear I'll get around to something substantial one of these days. Shoot me a request? Those're great. I'm so honored you read this tiny little piece! Thanks!


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